Touching All the Bases

 Or as this game is played, both bases.  There are only two.

Wednesday

In order to run under its own power, the 36 will need trolley poles, and therefore trolley bases.  Al and I went out to the container and brought back the car's two bases for overhaul and repainting.  They both seem to be in good condition, so basically I knocked all the loose tar, paint, and rust off the bases, while Al sand-blasted the loose parts.  And I topped off the oil.

(L) Before starting, it looks like this.

(R) Partway through the cleaning process.

Meanwhile, Rich Witt continues to assemble all his boxes, little boxes, little boxes made of ticky-tacky...   sorry, wrong song.  They're actually made of poplar.  But they do look just the same, and they will look just right when installed on the cars.

I also checked out the parts for the grid box we need to rebuild, and so on.

 

 By the end of the day, the bases were ready for primer, as seen in Al's previous post.

But wait, that's not all!  For its 60th birthday, your Museum received a Cleveland streetcar, as we have already said, although for practical reasons the wrapping hasn't been removed yet.  And four CTA cars.  The first of them arrived last evening via Silk Road.

Here it is inching its way around the corner of Depot and Central. 

And sitting on its trailer at the crossing.  Cars of this class are still in service on the CTA for a little while longer.

Unloading went very smoothly, thanks to the skill of the Silk Road driver, Rod, Jerry, Rich Schauer, and a couple of others.  Jim West and I just rubbernecked.

 

 Rich helps Rod position the ramp.  We have this down to a science.

With a little more work, it looks like this.  As the sun sinks slowly in the west....

 

I wish I had a video of this.  I know nothing about the mechanical systems on these cars, but Jerry does this for a living, so after the chains and chocks are removed, the car rolls down the trailer and the ramp with Jerry walking alongside, operating the mechanical actuator to control the braking. And it rolls gently down onto our track and comes to a stop at a convenient spot.

Then two of our CTA 2000's couple up and pull it away.  It took slightly under half an hour from the time the trailer was spotted to coupling up to the car, now at its new home.

And I believe plans are to install poles on these cars and put them into operation quickly.  Of course, these cars never have conductors, so instead we need volunteer panhandlers to come through the train and annoy the passengers.   I'm sure Jim West will be glad to sign you up.

Thursday

Good progress was made on the 36's control system, and there were a few connections to the grid boxes that had been loosened for some reason.  It seemed to take forever, but those were finally tightened up.

And the trolley bases and the grid box parts got a coat of finish black, as seen here.

And all this time, contractors were hard at work on the west side of the property, grading and filling and so on.  I'm not sure what all is intended, but this work involves drainage and street improvements.